Power Writing Session

Whew! Talk about where panic gets you, and where procrastination doesn't. Just finished a revision of my dissertation prospectus after sitting at my computer for the last 8 hours.

I'm supposed to be meeting with my five person dissertation committee on Dec. 20th for my prospectus defense. I had said back at the end of October that I'd send out the draft of my prospectus that I'd be "defending" by Dec. 6. Well, that didn't happen. It just didn't. It probably could have. But it didn't.

In any case, I've been working on it on and off since the end of October. Okay, perhaps more off than on. But still, it's only the 10th, there's still plenty of time for folks to read it. I've already sent them all an earlier draft. And only one person out of the five said they wanted me to change that earlier draft. I figured that meant the other four were already on board, without changes. Apparently, it doesn't mean that at all.

Frankly, I have no idea what it means when they don't ask for changes of an earlier draft, but then get all freaky they haven't seen the subsequent revision. Funny thing is this...when I was shopping my earlier draft around, they all took three weeks to over a month to get around to sitting down to read it (which then they probably spent an hour, maybe two, reading and commenting on) and get back to me, but now I'm looking like the one who's bad with time. It sucks.

I don't want to be seen as the one who's late with stuff, and irresponsible. I got it done when I could. I really did. That's good enough for me. I just wish it were good enough for them.

Whoever came up with PhD standing for Piled Higher and Deeper wasn't joking! Speaking of which, to check out the popular comic strip about life (or the lack thereof) in grad school titled "Piled Higher and Deeper," go to http://www.phdcomics.com



Let's hope it goes this well!